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Fort A.P. Hill
Leveraging Cooperation for Compatible Use Conservation
It is increasingly clear that innovative and effective partnerships are key to the long term success of conservation. One partnership that may strike many as surprising is the growing alliance between the military and conservation groups like The Nature Conservancy.
Once-remote military bases across the country are becoming “islands of biodiversity in a sea of development.” The accelerating loss and fragmentation of natural areas in the vicinity of military bases poses an increasing threat to the ability of the military to use those bases – and associated airspace – to conduct testing and training missions. In response to this problem, the military is engaged in a national effort to seek out partners – both public and private – and then to move forward with those partners to protect areas vital to the military mission.
What brings the Conservancy and other conservation organizations to the table is a treasure trove of wild places, animals and plants. The Pentagon manages nearly 30 million acres on 425 major installations, encompassing every imaginable type of terrain and ecosystem.
If biodiversity is the yardstick, the military’s land management has been extraordinary. Nearly 330 endangered or threatened species are found on Defense Department lands, more than are found on any other kind of federal land, including the National Park system.
A new partnership at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia holds great promise. At nearly 76,000 acres, Fort A.P. Hill is one of the largest and most important military installations on the East Coast. It also is one of the most ecologically important areas in eastern Virginia. Working together over the next 8-10 years, the U.S. Army, the Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land, The Conservation Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation are seeking to protect more than 35,000 acres in the vicinity of Fort A.P. Hill, thereby securing both the military’s ability to train and key natural habitats and ecological systems.
While it supports thousands of training days per year, Fort A.P. Hill is largely undeveloped, over 90 percent forested and represents one of the largest blocks of unfragmented forest in the Mid-Atlantic region. Fort A.P. Hill itself and large blocks of adjacent land are priority areas for the Conservancy, and the base abuts the acquisition boundary of the USFWS’s Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
The key to success will be the ability to combine military funding and private resources with funding from state and federal land and water conservation programs and forestry and farm protection programs – in other words, true cooperative conservation.
The Fort A.P. Hill project is just one of many of these perhaps unlikely – but extraordinarily beneficial – new partnerships between and among nontraditional partners with seemingly unrelated missions and objectives, but who nonetheless unite and work together to achieve a common goal – the conservation of our natural heritage.
For More Information:
- Where We Work: The Nature Conservancy in Virginia
Working with conservation partners, local communities and people like you, The Nature Conservancy of Virginia has protected more than 270,000 acres. - Places We Protect: Eastern Virginia
The Nature Conservancy of Virginia is addressing threats to natural areas by restoring habitat, partnering with private landowners, promoting sound land and water use practices, and other creative strategies. - Nature Conservancy Magazine: Room to Manuever
A new partnership between conservation groups and the Department of Defense has formed to confront a common enemy: unregulated urban growth that threatens both biodiversity and military readiness. Learn how these natural allies are working to protect wild spaces around the United States. - How We Work: Nature Conservancy Partnerships
The Nature Conservancy pursues non-confrontational, pragmatic, market-based solutions to conservation challenges. This makes it essential for us to work collaboratively with partners – communities, businesses, government agencies, multilateral institutions, individuals and other non-profit organizations.
